Holy F..k!
The rest day was over and it was time to ride again. 200m beyond the hotel we hit a climb so steep we had to lean forward to keep the front of the bike on the road. It's at moments like that you really question what you are doing, where you are and why you thought it would be a good idea to cycle a bike, weighing nearly 40kg, across the world. The first hour really challenged us all. Sean felt ill and the heat was oppressive beyond what we had geared ourselves up for mentally. Having learnt our day one lesson, however, we were in the know about what lay ahead - a lovely, sweeping descent with views of rice fields and mountains. The roads were devoid of traffic and we found time to get some action shots of the downhill at full speed.
The view from our rest day hotel spot
The emotional rollercoaster, however, was to continue. The descent ended and we met the main road. Main roads in Indonesia are nothing like main roads in New Zealand. They are full of pot-holes and lumps where, to fix a pothole, they have simply mounded more tar and gravel. Our bikes started to shake. Everything starts hurting that much more when the roads deteriorate. Your hands absorb most of the jarring and this passes up through your forearm and elbow. Inevitably ones rear end takes an absolute pounding. We carried along through suburb after industrial suburb. We were in Java's answer to Huntly only it was pushing 35 degrees, buses were roaring past sitting on their horns, and the roads were shaking us to pieces - not a Waikato Draught in sight either for that matter. It's at times like these we all collectively agree to a 'Mental Health Break', or MHB in technical terms. Out comes the Pocari Sweat, off come the helmets and we sit on the road side and try and laugh about the situation.
A classic MHB spot
Eventually we made it to Kediri, a town that needs no more than a sentence wasted on it. Clocking more than 100kms in a day was a great milestone to hit. We stayed the night and motored out the next morning, again graced by a wonderful tail wind. The roads again deteriorated to some form of dusty lunar surface. Despite taking extra care our panniers (the bags that attach to the bikes and hold all our worldly possessions) took a hammering and were shaken off the bikes at least ten times between us. We got to Madiun later that evening after the roads flattened out and progress was made.
An example of a particularly bad stretch of road
The next day we had two options. Ride 80km to a town called Sraagen, famous for it's bus bypass and petrol station, or push nearly 120kms to Surakarta. The longer push would put us only 65kms from Yogykarta and our rest days. With the wind at our backs and morale reaching peak levels we pushed forward humming Crowded House and practicing our own rendition of Pokarakare Ana, complete with three part harmony. We will be revealing that across all social media channels when it is ready. We rode into Surakarta in the evening sun, full of excitement at being in a real city (population almost the same as the entire NZ). Being well and truly fed up (what a pun) with Nasi Goreng and Mie Goreng we found a Mexican place and ordered up large on the nachos and non-alcoholic (bugger) mojitos.
The next morning we began the ride to Yogykarta after a leisurely start in the pool and with room service (all for less than $10NZD) for breakfast. The ride was uneventful to start with plenty of drafting (sitting closely behind and effectively hiding from the wind) large slow moving trucks. Around midday we kicked off a set of traffic lights and Sean's bike wasn't sitting in gear. After a few rapid revolutions attempting to ride the chain back in position we heard metal on metal. Closely inspecting the bike Freddie had a minor meltdown, always being the first to stress. The chain had badly twisted itself. The bike was going nowhere in a hurry.
The first major mechanical - a twisted and ultimately unusable chain
We pulled all the panniers from the bike, turned it upside down and pulled the broken chain from the bike. After an hour of attempting to bend the damaged piece back into position and re-insert it into the chain it was clear we were fighting an uphill battle. Finally throwing in the towel we pulled out the one and only spare chain and had the bike up and running. Stress levels were running high - it was far too early in the trip to have buggered a chain! Would we be able to find a replacement in Yogykarta? What if we had another such incident before we got there with no spare?
Riding into Yogykarta
Fortunately there were no more problems. After a very crucial Mental Health Break the going was smooth and we arrived in Yogykarta. Riding down Malioboro street and the streets surrounding we saw Bintang signs! What a place to have a few days off! We checked in to the hotel and promptly made our way to the first bar. There are few experiences like that first sip of a cold Bintang after days on the road.
